“We could go to the CVS,” I said, pointing across the Circle to the drug store. “They’re open. I imagine they have Christmas things.”
“Yeah! Let’s!”
We did. It was late, but as it was only a few days until the holiday there were plenty of people milling around. We picked up silly things—little Santa statuettes, colorful streamers, a green and red banner that read HO HO HO, cassettes of Christmas music, lots of candy in holiday-hued wrappers.
“Can we get a tree?” she asked, looking at the various artificial trees on display.
“We don’t really have room for a tree, honey.”
“No, I guess not. Hey, what about this?” She picked up a little green potted plant. The pot had been wrapped shiny red gift paper.
I smiled. “That’s a bush, not a tree.”
“So, it’ll be our Christmas bush!”
“But we’d need ornaments for it, wouldn’t we?” As I said it, my glance fell on exactly that: tiny boxes of miniature ornaments for sale. “Well, okay,” I said, taking up a box. “A Christmas bush it is!”
“Awesome!”
Her excitement communicated itself to me and I felt almost giddy as we bought the items. We both giggled with anticipation of turning our apartment into a Christmas-themed wonderland. We rushed home with the loot and spent a laughing half-hour setting things up and decorating our “tree”; by the time we were finished it looked, at least to my eyes, beautiful. Rae made tea for us and we dropped down onto the sofa. She turned on the TV and there it was, one of the basic holiday treats of my childhood: A Charlie Brown Christmas. We watched, munching on holiday chocolates and finishing our drinks as Charlie Brown picked the scrawny tree, as he always did, and eventually was forgiven by the other kids, as he always was. At the end I looked at her. There was a tear trickling down her cheek.
“Are you crying?” I said, smiling slightly.
“Shut up!” she laughed. “It was sad!”
“It had a happy ending!”
“Well, I still felt sorry for the tree!”
I tickled her and she giggled wildly, kicking and play-slapping me.
Eventually we calmed down again, turned off the TV, sat in the December semi-dark quietly together. I realized that I couldn’t remember another time when I’d been so happy. Thoughts of my heart, of Vincent and his mother, of Dad, of my own fading energies and encroaching mortality—it all seemed far away, if only for a little while.
Finally I heard her breathing grow deep and even and I realized she’d fallen asleep. I jostled her gently off my shoulder and eased her down onto the sofa. I stood looking at her for a while. She looked fuller than she had, it seemed to me. Healthier. Certainly fuller and healthier than when we’d first met, when she seemed so thin and weak that she appeared on the verge of simply crumpling up and vanishing.
I stepped into the bedroom, turned on the computer. Took off my clothes, put on pajamas and a robe while I waited for it to boot up. I glanced at a few irrelevant e-mails and then clicked back to the only one that mattered. Sherry O’Shea’s. I again considered not answering at all. Then I played with possible tones, typing out a few words, a sentence or two—flippant, serious, nostalgic, neutral—and deleted them all. Eventually I glanced at the clock and realized with shocked impatience that I’d been fiddling at this for nearly an hour.
Finally I typed Would you like to meet at your hotel for a drink? No salutation, no closing. I hit Send before I deleted my words again.
Done.
Well, there it was. Just like that. Contact reestablished, after a decade and a half.
But then, I wondered, how else can contact ever be reestablished between people but suddenly, abruptly? In the end, somebody has to say hello. Just like that.
I looked idly around at books on Amazon.com for a few minutes, and then noticed the flag on my little e-mailbox at the corner of my screen pop up. I clicked. It was her.
Inhaling slowly, I opened the message. It was exactly one word long.
The word was: When?
6
The hotel was in Tenleytown, a short ride up the Metro Red Line from Dupont Circle. I knew the place well; it was the neighborhood of American University, “A.U.,” the hub of the area. It was a trendy neighborhood, filled with restaurants and shops and clubs occupying every inch of space along Connecticut Avenue, its main artery. It was a cold night, one of the coldest of the year, and the frigid wind whipped my face as I came up the subway escalator into the winter dark. Burying my hands in my pockets, I oriented myself and figured out which direction to walk; it would be a couple of blocks, that’s all. I started out, my face quickly starting to sting—I realized too late that I should have worn a hat. But I wasn’t really thinking of the cold. I wasn’t even thinking, quite, of Sherry O’Shea. Instead I was preoccupied with what had happened with Rae before I left the apartment.
“Honey,” I’d said, “I’m going out for a couple of hours, to have a drink with a friend. You be okay here?”
She was watching TV, another of my gigantic shirts overhanging her blue jeans and socks. She was sitting with her knees pulled up, arms wrapped around her legs and her feet on the sofa. It was a cozy picture; she looked just like any kid watching TV.
“What?” she said, her head turning to where I stood at the closet, pulling out my coat.
“I said, I’m going to meet a friend for a drink. I’ll be back in a couple of hours, okay? I won’t be gone long. Dinner was great. Thank you.”
As I pulled my sleeve over my arm I saw her stand up and look at me strangely.
“You’re going out?” she asked in a small voice.
I stopped, coat halfway on. “Mm-hm. Is that okay?”
“I...” She hesitated, seemingly confused. “Can—can I come?”
“Well...” I finished with the coat. “I don’t think it would be very interesting for you, honey. Just an old friend. You know what grown-ups are like when they start talking about old times. Boring, right?”
“I wouldn’t mind. I wouldn’t say a word.”
“Honey, I’ll be gone for an hour or two. That’s all.”
“Where? Where are you going?”
“Tenleytown.”
“Where in Tenleytown?”
I looked at her. “What’s wrong, Rae? You don’t want me to go out?”
She stepped close to me. “I just don’t get why you don’t want to take me. Did I do something wrong?”
I tousled her hair. “Of course you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just...” It was hard to explain. “I do have friends, you know. People I like to meet sometimes. Just like...” But before I finished the sentence I realized that Rae didn’t have any friends. She had no one but me. “Just like you’ll have, once you get going in school and meet kids your own age.”
“I don’t care about kids my own age.”
I exhaled and moved to the kitchen table, pulled out one of the chairs and sat. I could see this was going to take a few minutes. She dropped down beside me.
“Rae, what’s wrong?”
She didn’t meet my eyes. “I want to go with you.”
“You’d be bored.”
“I don’t care.”
“Honey...”
“It’s just that we’ve never been apart. Not since I came.”
“Sure we have. You’ve gone out and gotten groceries, gotten the mail...”
“That’s different. That’s for us.”
I looked at her. Her arms were limp, her palms open on her lap.
“Well, honey, you know, we can’t be together all the time.”
She looked up. “Why not?”
“Well...what about when school starts again? You’ll start your different classes, and...”
“I thought I could just stay with you.”
“With me? Kiddo, they’ll give you a schedule. You’ll have math and science and history—all those things. You probably won’t even be in my English class, you know. They’ll assign you to another teac
her.”
“Why?”
“Because—because of favoritism, that’s why. It might not be fair to the other students, if a teacher’s daughter is in the class.”
“You’d be fair. I know you would be.”
“Well...”
“I want to have all my classes with you.”
“Honey, come on, you know that can’t work.” I tried to smile. “I only teach English, you know. You have to...”
She scowled then, and looked away. She bit her lip. In a moment tears started to run down her cheeks.
“Honey, honey,” I whispered, folding her into my arms. “What in the world has gotten into you?”
She was whispering something. I couldn’t quite make out the words, but I knew what they were.
Love me. Love me. Love me.
“Rae, I do love you.” I kissed the top of her head. “I do.”
“Then why are you leaving?” she asked, her voice broken, weak.
“I told you, I’ll be back soon.”
“I’m scared. What if you get hit by a...by a car, or a robber...a robber shoots you, or...?”
“Rae, Rae, nothing like that is going to happen.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know.”
“Well, I guess I don’t. But it’s so unlikely—it’s a million to one.”
“So am I,” she said. “A million to one.”
“Honey, we—we have to live. We can’t be together all the time. It’s not possible. The world doesn’t work that way. People...they have to have their own lives too. They’re together, because they love each other, but then they’re apart too, sometimes.”
“I don’t want to be apart.”
I held her. Maybe I should just call it off, I thought. Send Sherry an e-mail. Postpone. But then another part of me thought that I had to exert parental authority and guidance here. Maybe by separating for a few hours Rae could see, when I returned, that I would come home. Always.
“Honey, I want you to calm down. Come on. You know I wouldn’t leave you. I just need to go see an old friend for a little while, that’s all. I’ll take a short Metro ride up to Tenleytown, go to the hotel, have a drink or two with her, and come back home. I promise.”
“Her?”
“Her. She’s—a girl. A woman. Yeah.”
“An old girlfriend?”
“Just an old friend. That’s all. Look, remember all that stuff we bought for making cookies? Why don’t you make them while I’m gone? How about that? And watch TV. Really, honey...it’ll be okay. I promise. I swear.”
We pulled apart and she gazed at me.
“Two hours?” she said. “That’s all.”
“Two hours.”
She seemed to think about it. “Will you call me from there?”
“Call you?”
“So I know that you got there okay.”
“Um...sure. Sure, I’ll call. Yeah.” I nodded. “Good idea.”
I took her hand. It was clammy and cold.
“Are you okay now?” I asked.
She looked glum. “I don’t know.”
It was a risky move, but I decided to chance it. “Look—if you really don’t want me to go, I won’t.”
“You won’t?”
“I’ll get in touch with my friend. I’ll tell her I can’t come.”
She brightened. “Okay!”
Well, I thought, so much for reverse psychology. I sighed. Total failure.
“All right,” I said, standing wearily and pulling off my coat. “I’ll send her an e-mail. I’ll stay here with you. Okay?”
She nodded enthusiastically. I went to the closet and hung up my coat, feeling utterly defeated. I smiled slightly as I passed by her and went into the bedroom, double-clicked to go online. I waited as the computer did its work.
A few moments later she appeared in the doorway.
“You really want to go,” she said, “don’t you?”
I looked at her. “Well, yeah, honey. But not if you’re not okay with it. I can stay here with you. It’s no big deal.”
She glanced at me, then moved slowly to the bed and sat on its far corner. “I guess you should go,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
She took a deep breath, and nodded.
“You’ll call when you’re there, right?” she asked.
“I sure will.”
“And you’ll only be gone two hours?”
“Two hours.”
She chewed on her lower lip.
“You promise?”
I held up my right hand. “I promise.”
Finally she nodded. “Okay.” She left the bedroom.
I turned off the computer and made my way to the closet again, got my coat out once more.
She was looking out the window. Without turning around she said, “I’m sorry, Dad.”
“Don’t be, honey. It’s okay. I understand. It’s all right. Two hours. Tops.” I turned the switch for the deadbolt and pulled open the door.
At that moment, quicker than I would have imagined possible, she darted to where I was standing and threw her arms around me again. I returned the embrace, but slightly. I patted her back. As I tried to pull away I realized she was very strong—remarkably strong. Her arms were like vice grips.
“Two hours?” she whispered.
“Two hours.”
At last her arms loosened, and I stepped out. The door clicked gently shut behind me. I made sure to check my watch. It was 7:42.
It wasn’t until I had the hotel in view that my mind shifted back to Sherry O’Shea. Oddly, I wasn’t in the least nervous—or, at least, I didn’t think that I was. I suppose my mind simply hadn’t processed the enormity of seeing her again. And yet, I wondered, what enormity? We were meeting for a drink, that was all. She was an old girlfriend in town for a few days. A drink. One drink. Say hello, catch up. A quick hug, a peck on the cheek, a “so nice to see you again,” and I was on my way home again. Rae occupied a much bigger place in my mind, as our discussion led me to wonder about things I’d tried not to think about: exactly what would it be like, living with her day after day? How would I explain her to people? I could scarcely explain her to myself. A thousand complications and confusions seemed to loom before me, before us, and I didn’t know how I would resolve any of them. Since I’d gotten out of the hospital I’d mostly known nothing but simple happiness with the girl. But soon...
I checked my watch as I stepped through the automatic sliding doors of the hotel’s lobby. 8:09. Not bad. I’d agreed to meet Sherry at eight o’clock. Fashionably late, maybe.
But as I looked around the lobby’s marble and polished-oak interior—it was a huge, high-ceilinged place, much of it covered over with festive holiday decorations—I didn’t see her. The long registration counter was to the right, staffed at the moment by two blue-uniformed young women. Big overstuffed leather sofas and chairs everywhere. At the rear of the lobby were the elevators. To the left, an entrance to the lounge and restaurant. Few people were milling about on this weekday night close to Christmas; I looked, but no one who might be Sherry O’Shea seemed to be there.
I stepped into the lounge, which was very dim. I didn’t want to go hunting around every table and booth. Surely she would keep herself easier to find. I stepped out again.
I wondered if I’d come too late; checked my watch again. 8:12. I dropped down into one of the fat and not particularly comfortable sofas, keeping my eye on the bar entrance and the elevators. I’d have to be sure to leave by 9:10 in order to keep my promise to Rae. And somehow I knew it was important to do that. Important to her. Maybe crucial. I sighed. The minutes ticked by. My nerves were jumping. Good grief, where was she?
Finally I got up and moved to the registration desk. There was a heavyset woman speaking with one of the clerks, so I stepped up to the other and said, “Excuse me, but I wonder if I could get you to ring a room for me? It’s Miss Sherry O’Shea, her room number is...” And as I fished in my pocket for the slip of pa
per where I’d recorded the information I realized that the heavyset woman next to me was asking her clerk if there were any messages for her—“From a Mr. Fall? Benjamin Fall?”
I looked at her. “Sherry?”
She returned the look, blankly. “Yes?”
I’m sure that by the clock the moment lasted no more than a single second, but it seemed as if a minute or two elapsed as we stared at each other. My instantaneous, overwhelming impression was that Sherry O’Shea had gotten old. Old and heavy: she’d put on thirty pounds, surely. Her hair was short, almost boyish, brushed back from her face in a very ’90s professional-woman look. The hair itself, still splashy orange, had a few white streaks in it. Her face, rounder and puffier than I remembered it, was familiarly freckled. Her outfit was a black pants suit, well tailored to her form. Still, it was her eyes that made it clear that this was, truly, Sherry. They were unchanged. Long-lashed, very blue, with those curiously heavy lids that gave her that sleepy look—Sherry. My God. Sherry O’Shea.
“Ben,” she said, her voice lower than I remembered it. She smiled, a smile that looked very familiar to me. She reached out her hand. “Hello.”
I took the hand. She had a good, firm, professional handshake.
“Hi, Sherry.”
The moment was, of course, awkward, embarrassing. How could it not be? Fifteen, sixteen years did not just melt away in an instant. In fact, those years were all too obviously standing there between us. I suspected that her eyes had combed the lobby numerous times, just as mine had, and she had failed to recognize me, just as I’d failed to see her. What did I look like, after all? Where had the slender, long-haired boy she remembered gone? And who was this fat, balding stranger with his name?
“It’s great to see you,” she said.
“It’s great to see you.” I found myself wishing I’d dressed a bit better. I was presentable enough in my teacher shirt, khakis, and loafers, but Sherry was business-formal. “Sorry I’m late.”
“Oh no, that’s okay. I just got down here myself.” I was sure that wasn’t true. “The conference ran later than scheduled.”
“Oh. Well, then.”
Lullaby for the Rain Girl Page 31